Captain America: Sam Wilson: Not My Captain America by Nick Spencer (Writer), Daniel Acuna (Artist), Mike Choi (Aritst), Paul Renaud (Artist), Romuld Fajardo (Colorist), and VC's Joe Caramagna (Letterer)

This first comic opens with the former Falcon, Sam Wilson, who Steve Rogers passed down the mantle of Captain America too not to long ago, flying coach on a plane going somewhere and the story is told in flashbacks beginning with his takedown of Hydra.  Something really bad has happened between him and SHIELD that has caused the two of them to break off with the Hydra job being the last thing he seems to have agreed to do for them and then leave.  

Sam decides to go to the press and offer up his ideas on what can be done to make things better and gets raked over the coals for it.  His reputation is in tatters.  He still wants to help people so he sets up a hotline for people to call him if they need him. This turns out to be a bit of a mistake in a way because he gets calls from people who want him to do something about a cheating husband, a canceled TV show, and noise complaints.

But one of them is from a grandmother whose grandson, Joaquin is missing. He would go out into the desert to leave water and supplies for those who cross the border and he went out to do just that and hasn't come back home. The police won't help and the grandmother believes that he has been taken by the group the Sons of the Serpent.

Misty Knight his work partner (do not think of calling her a sidekick) refuses to go to the Mexican border because she thinks it's dangerous and a waste of time and money they don't have.  Dennis Dunphy, his pilot, mechanic, and field backup does not have much to do since there's no money for this mission. Sam's brother, a pastor, raises enough funds for him to take a plane trip to and from there (coach of course).

When he gets there he runs into SHIELD and discovers that the men he meets aren't the real power behind the Sons of the Serpent.  There is a doctor who has been taking some of the men who cross the border and using them for experiments.  The Sons of the Serpent are a corporation now run by Viper the criminal who now preaches hate and intolerance and has a hidden agenda. Of course, the once evil Diamondback makes an appearance, whom Steve Rogers dated for a while when she went straight.

The story is really great and Misty and Dennis are just fabulous characters.  Misty is a total kick ass and a smart ass, who takes no crap from anyone--including Sam.  Dennis is a sweet guy who has been through a lot in life and survived it and at the same time can just absolutely take down the bad guys.  The paneling for the fight scene at the end is very creatively done.  The colors are mostly glorious reds and oranges due to Sam's wings and the fight scenes. But some of the non-fight scenes are done up in those colors too to show the emotions of the scene. Overall this is a great start to the Sam Wilson Captain America.

Link to Amazon:  https://www.amazon.com/Captain-America-Wilson-Vol-2015-2017-ebook/dp/B01DCJIW8C/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1498835336&sr=8-1&keywords=captain+america+sam+wilson+vol+1        

Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons

Published in 1932, but set in the not too distant future for some obscure reason, this novel tells the tale of the now orphaned Flora Poste who does not wish to get a job, but cannot live off of the yearly sum of one hundred pounds, decides to write letters to relatives and see if she can live with one of them for a while until she finds a suitable husband--not that she's looking for one at the moment.  Her best friend the widowed Mrs. Smiling who has a coterie of suitors trailing after her with the oddest of nicknames such as Bikki and Swooth thinks she is nuts. But when Flora decides upon the Starkadders of Cold Comfort Farm in Sussex due to the odd nature of the letter she received wherein her cousin Judith told her that they would take her in due to some debt they owed her father that had cursed the farm but to not ask her what it was about because she would not tell her.  Flora tells Mrs. Smiling that she will send word when she gets there if there is an oversexed Seth or a Reuben and if she'll need gumboots.  Her darling friend Charles tells her he will come in his aeroplane anytime she needs a lift back home.

Of course, when she gets there she immediately sends a wire back to Mrs. Smiley that there is indeed a Seth and a Reuben and she has a definite need of gumboots.  Adam, the first person of the household that she meets, takes care of the cows and other animals on the farm and is about ninety-years-old.  He adores all animals and often sings to them.  Seth does nothing around the farm but gets the serving girl pregnant. He has four illegitimate children and loves to go the "talkies" (movies).  Reuben is trying to run the farm but is not being allowed to.  His father Amos has a fire in his belly to preach to the sinners of hellfire and brimstone which he does in town once a week.  Seth's mother, Judith stays in bed and moans about her son Seth.  Mrs. Beetle, the serving girl, Meriam's mother and Meriam on occasion, take care of the house and cook the meals other than breakfast, which Adam poorly fixes.  And then there was Mrs. Starkadder, Aunt Ada Doom, who has shut herself up in her room only to be seen twice a year by the family.  She has her meals brought up to her daily by Mrs. Beetle and the farm records are also brought up regularly.  As Aunt Ada Doom is fond of saying "There have always been Starkadders at Cold Comfort Farm".  And as long as she is alive none of them are to leave to even go into the big town of Beershorn except when the money needs to be deposited into the bank.  They all bicker and fight with each other and the other Starkadders that I haven't named (there are many) that are married their wives live off the site because they are not welcome in the house.  

Flora immediately takes it upon herself to fix the problems that Cold Comfort Farm is having and make things right.  She starts with Amos and Reuben. She encourages Amos to go out and preach town to town and city to city in a Ford van, which would let Reuben have control of the farm. She also works on her woods-wild cousin Elfine to turn her into a lady so she can be made into a marriageable material.  But she doesn't stop there. She has plans for others as well and the whole thing snowballs. The only problem thwarting her plans is the mean and supposedly crazy Aunt Ada Doom who saw something in the woodshed when she was little that made her lose her mind.  

This book is a delight to read. It pokes fun at intellectuals (who seem to be obsessed with sex) as well as the country folk.  But it's a good-natured poke. The author makes up a lot of words in this book that you would think they belong to the language of those living in the area of Sussex and one of them was added to the Oxford English Dictionary.  But don't worry about being lost in the language as it is very easy to understand--hilariously so, I might add.  This book is a bit ridiculous and you just have to go with the flow as you will realize when the cows start losing hooves.  Just suspend belief and take a step into the unreality of this wacky novel.

Here's more information about the novel: http://www.bookdrum.com/books/cold-comfort-farm/9780140274141/bookmarks-1-25.html?bookId=1186

Quotes

 There are some things (like first love and one’s reviews) at which a woman in her middle years does not care to look too closely.

-Stella Gibbons (Cold Comfort Farm p 7)

I am only nineteen, but I have already observed that whereas there still lingers some absurd prejudice against living on one’s friends, no limits are set, either by society or by one’s own conscience, to the amount one may impose upon one’s relatives.

-Stella Gibbons (Cold Comfort Farm p 15)

My idea of hell is a very large party in a cold room.

-Stella Gibbons (Cold Comfort Farm p 16)

Curious how Love destroys every vestige of that politeness which the human race, in its years of evolution, has so painfully acquired.

-Stella Gibbons (Cold Comfort Farm p 31)

Never confront and enemy at the end of a journey, unless it happens to be his journey.

-Stella Gibbons (Cold Comfort Farm p 47)

Surely she had endured enough for one evening without having to listen to intelligent conversation!

-Stella Gibbons (Cold Comfort Farm p 100)

He said that a woman’s success could only be estimated by the success of her sexual life…

-Stella Gibbons (Cold Comfort Farm p 122)

Richard had realized, not that Elfine was beautiful, but that he loved Elfine. (Young men frequently need this fact pointed out to them, as Flora knew by observing the antics of her friends.)

-Stella Gibbons (Cold Comfort Farm)

She knew from experience that intellectuals thought the proper—nay, the only—way to fall in love with somebody was to do it the very instant you saw them. You met somebody, and thought they were ‘A charming person. So gay and simple.’ Then you walked home from a party with them (preferably across Hampstead Heath, about three in the morning)discussing whether you should sleep together or not. Sometimes you asked them to go to Italy with you. Sometimes they asked you to go to Italy (preferably Portofino) with them. You held hands, and laughed, and kissed them and called them your ‘true love’.  You loved them for eight months, and then you met somebody else and began being gay and simple all over again, with small-hours’ walk across Hampstead, Portofino, invitation, and all. It was very simple, gay, and natural, somehow.

-Stella Gibbons (Cold Comfort Farm p 190)

Link to Amazon:  https://www.amazon.com/Cold-Comfort-Farm-Stella-Gibbons-ebook/dp/B00ODEFPRM/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1498655458&sr=8-1&keywords=cold+comfort+farm

    

Kill the Boy Band by Goldy Moldavsky

They never meant for things to go as far as they did. Narrated by a teen girl whose real name you never get to know (she changes them as she introduces herself to others as characters from 80s movies such as Diane Court from Say Anything) this book starts off with a group of four teen girls who have kidnapped the least liked of the most popular boy band in the world, The Ruperts.  The Ruperts were formed when they all appeared as contestants on the show So You Think the British Don't Have Talent?  One of the judges noticed all the Ruperts signs in the audience and thought the four of them should form a band together to finish out the competition.  So Rupert Lemon (who did an opera jazz song), Rupert Kirke (who did something on an acoustic guitar), Rupert Xavier (who combined singing with modeling), and Rupert Pierpont (the juggler) all got together and formed The Ruperts and won the contest and were an overnight success.

What got the girls in the mess they are in now is that The Ruperts decided to do a show called The Ruperts Learn About Thanksgiving! in New York City where the four girls, Erin, the gorgeous boss (who likes Rupert L.), Isobel the commanding crazy one with the all the info on the band and a website dedicated to them (who likes Rupert X) , and Apple (who likes Rupert P), who is overweight and whose parents have a lot of money, live.  Diane likes Rupert K.  The girls desperately want tickets to the show.  Apple's maid gets them a room since they aren't adults and can't get it for themselves, at the hotel the boys are staying at.  When Apple goes out to get ice she spots Rupert P and she tackles him and brings him back to the room.  They immediately tie him up with stockings and blindfold him.

Diane wants to do the right thing and untie Rupert P and let him go before they get into the kind of trouble that leads to jail.  But will she be able to beat the peer pressure beating down on her by her friends who are growing crazier by the second and taking her with them down a demented path that will go where you least expect it to?  This book explores the idea of boy bands and the good and evil that they inspire in their followers in a darkly humorous way.  I really loved this book and its originality and crazy ideas. I highly recommend reading it.

Quotes

I was holding someone captive and all that was going through my mind was a Billboard Top 40 love song. I was going to hell.

-Goldy Moldavsky (Kill the Boy Band p 11)

Happiness isn’t always easy, but it’s a priority.

-Goldy Moldavsky (Kill the Boy Band p 21)

Because the truth is, it isn’t worth loving something if you aren’t going to love it all the way.

-Goldy Moldavsky (Kill the Boy Band p 32)

The joy you find as a teen, however frivolous and dumb, is pure, and meaningful.  It doesn’t matter that it might ferment and taste different when you’re older. That’s the whole point of being a teenager—not worrying about the future.

-Goldy Moldvsky (Kill the Boy Band p 63)

Carrie Underwood, take the wheel—I was not okay.

-Goldy Moldvsky (Kill the Boy Band p 121)

Erin says girls apologize too much. We say “I’m sorry” almost as much as we say “Hello.”

-Goldy Moldvsky (Kill the Boy Band p 128)

Link to Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Kill-Boy-Band-Goldy-Moldavsky-ebook/dp/B013504FBG/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1498482323&sr=8-1&keywords=kill+the+boy+band

Locke and Key: Welcome to Lovecraft by Joe Hill (Writer), Gabriel Rodriguez (Art), Jay Fotos (Colors), and Robbie Robbins (Letters)

The Locke family, which includes the mother, Nina, and her three kids Tyler, Kinsey, and Bode and Nina's dead husband's brother Duncan move across the country when two teens, Sam Lesser and Al Grubb shoot and kill Rendell Locke, the husband, and father because he wouldn't give them something they wanted.  He had always told them to go and live in the Keyhouse in Massachusetts with Duncan if anything ever happened so they packed up and did.  The Keyhouse is Duncan and Rendell's childhood home and a place of great mystery.

This comic tells the story of the day the horrible tragedy happened in flashbacks as it moves the current story in Lovecraft, Massachusettes forward.  Ty is trying to work himself to death in order to not think about what happened and Kinsey has changed her free-spirited appearance to something staider in order for no one to notice her.  Bode has discovered the magic of the place by placing a certain key into a certain door so that when he walks through it he can "die" and become a ghost and travel all over the house and watch people without them knowing it.  He also discovers the mysterious lady in the well who seems to know a lot and might have an agenda of her own.

Joe Hill is a favorite author of mine and in this comic, he really shines.  The artwork is quite graphic and gothic which is perfect for this type of comic. The dusty colors add to that gothic sense of being attached to the special house. The fight scene that lacks any paneling is a genius in its chaotic dance.  Overall this is a fabulous comic and I can't wait to read the next one in the series.

Link to Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Locke-Key-Vol-Welcome-Lovecraft-ebook/dp/B007KDHKZ8/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1498217058&sr=8-3&keywords=locke+and+key

Mrs. Holmes: The True Story of New York City's Greatest Female Detecive and the 1917 Missing Girl Case That Captivated a Nation by Brad Ricca

Grace Winterton Humiston was born in Greenwich Village, New York on September 17, 1869.  While she was practicing law at the turn of the century she would be only one of a thousand female lawyers in the United States. She was appointed the first female U.S. district attorney in history and the first female consulting detective to the New York Police Department.  She dressed all in black with a veil and her motto was "Justice for those of limited means."  She helped many immigrants who came to her door needing assistance that they could not get anywhere else without being swindled.  She freed one man from death row and proved his innocence and in her very first case she got a woman's sentence commuted from death to seven years right before she was to be hanged.

She also, with the help of her trusted detective, Julius J. Kron, went after the peonage system that was mostly in the South where they lured immigrants to come and work there then they had it so they bought everything they needed at the company store at a marked up price. By the end of the month, they owed the company money and needed to keep working to pay off the debt unless someone could send money to them. The worst of them whipped them and made them work and kept them from leaving.  It was just another form of slavery and the two of them took down a large part of the system.

Her biggest case, though, was the Cruger case.  Ruth Cruger went out one winter's day in New York City on February 13, 1917, to run some errands. She had to go to the bank and to pick up her ice skates from the motorcycle shop where they were being sharpened.  She never made it home.  Her sister, Christina raised the alarm to her other sister Helen who was at work that Ruth hadn't come home yet and it had been hours.  Helen told her she had probably gone ice skating but that she would look for her. Helen could not find her either and more importantly, Ruth had never made it to the bank.  She called the lawyer their father, an accountant knew and he called their parents who were in Boston and then the police.

Helen retraced her steps the next day including the mysterious stop at a stationary store. She stopped by the motorcycle shop twice before it showed signs of being open and talked to Alfredo Cocchi the owner who said that he returned her skates and that she went east.  The police received a report from a cab driver that Ruth was seen getting into a cab with a man.  Now, Ruth was a sweet innocent young girl according to her family and while she talked about a boy she knew at Columbia University it wasn't serious enough to name him to her family or for her to run away with him.  The police were now seeing this as a runaway case and not a kidnapping.

But because the case was so high profile and the victim so young and beautiful the mayor of New York made sure to get her picture out there and people saw it nationwide on the movie screen and in papers. She became known as the Heatherbloom Girl.   Leads went nowhere. Mr. Cruger himself combed the area where she was last seen to be going and where the cab was said to have dropped her off and found nothing. There were girls who were called in about that looked like her but turned out not to be her.  He had hired a detective at the start but that didn't work out so he fired him.

In June Mr. Cruger would hire Grace to help him find his daughter and help him she would.  She didn't believe that his daughter had run away. She was quite sure that she was already dead and it was a matter of finding where the body was and she had a pretty good idea of where to look.  While Grace would solve this case, the complexities of it would tie up the court system and make it hard for Ruth Cruger to get justice.  This case really puts Grace on the map and she could do no wrong. She championed her pet cause of white slavery and helping young girls escape the clutches of forced prostitution.  But the higher the pedestal, the greater the fall. And fall she would by her own hand. But she still never stopped helping people in need throughout her life and she was a woman to be admired for all her flaws.

Link to Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Mrs-Sherlock-Holmes-Detective-Captivated-ebook/dp/B01H03I7KE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1498056295&sr=8-1&keywords=Mrs.+Holmes

When All the Girls Have Gone by Jayne Ann Krentz

When Louise Flint is found dead in her condo of what appears to be a drug overdose her cousin doesn't buy it and hires PI Max Cutler to look into it. Cutler has just left his job as a profiler back in D.C. where he burnt out on his job and blew up his marriage.  Seattle is his chance to start over.  One night Charlotte Sawyer shows up with a key to Louise's locker at her condo. Charlotte works at an old folks home as the entertainment director.  Her sister and Louise were really close friends and Louise had sent Jocelyn the keys with the cryptic message that her copy of the hard drive would be in the locker in case anything happened to her and now she was dead.  Jocelyn was away on a retreat that did not allow technology so there was no way to get in contact with her.

Max is interested in Charlotte because she is the first person to show up to have known Louise.  Charlotte doesn't believe that Louise was using again after she had gone through so much to quit and built up a new life that meant so much to her and besides Jocelyn would have noticed and done something. Besides, the theory that her apartment was robbed by a dealer since her computer was missing doesn't hold up when you notice that her jewelry and the cash in her wallet were still there.  Charlotte and Max decide to join forces to get answers.

The hard drive Louise refers to is a map with five cities circled on it and a printout of two women's obituaries where their deaths were listed as drug overdoses, but Louise had written on the paper that they had been murdered.  Also included were documents of women who had been raped where drugs were involved.  When Max tells Charlotte that Louise's last destination on her car's GPS was Loring, Washington, Charlotte freaks because that is where her sister was raped over ten years ago back when she attended college there.  The suspect came at her from behind and put a bag over her head and a knife at her throat and she wasn't able to identify him. However, she did go to the hospital immediately afterward to do a rape kit, but the evidence box would conveniently disappear.

Louise and Jocelyn belonged to a mysterious investment club that also included Emily, who works in HR in a big business, Victoria, who works in marketing in the fashion world, and Madison, an investment banker.  Charlotte doesn't know the real purpose behind the group or why they might fear that their activities would lead to Louie's death or their own which has them running scared because Jocelyn isn't at the retreat she is on the run and the rest will soon follow.  Or is one of them killing each other off in order to get a bigger piece of the pie on a rather large investment that they are working on that is coming together?

There is plenty here to keep Charlotte and Max busy as they try to unravel the many strands of this mystery and nearly get killed doing so.  Of course, they slowly get closer to each other physically as well as romantically.  I've read better Krentz books, but this one is still pretty good.  I like the characters of Charlotte and Max and the people at the retirement home are a delight.   While it is a little predictable it does hold some surprises that make is worth reading.

Link to Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/When-All-Girls-Have-Gone-ebook/dp/B01COJUHBQ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1497873695&sr=8-1&keywords=where+are+the+girls+have+gone

Wonder Woman: The New 52! Volume Two: Guts by Brian Azzarello (Writer), Cliff Chiang (Artist), Tony Akins (Pencil), Dan Green (Ink) Matthew Wilson (Colorist), and Jared K. Fletcher (Letterer)

Wonder Woman along with a wounded Hermes and the strong Lennox (his body is the consistency of rocks and he is the son of Zeus) are looking to find a way to get the pregnant Zola out of the Underworld where Hades has her.  But they will need weapons first and those can only come from Hephaestus, god of the forge.  So they go to Eros, his son and ask him to get them in to see his father.  While there Wonder Woman finds out that the men who work there are all Amazonian men that were traded away for weapons rather than be killed as they were seen as useless to the Amazonians.  She is shocked and tries to free them from what she perceives as their bondage, but really they are free to work there and they like to work there and Wonder Woman makes a fool of herself in her ignorance.

But Hephaestus does agree to loan them some weapons and even Eros lets them borrow his special guns.  But only Wonder Woman and Hermes will be going down to the Underworld. Hermes because he can take someone there and Wonder Woman to get Zola.  While there things go horribly wrong of course and while Zola is saved, Wonder Woman is stuck in the Underworld with Hades to be his bride.  A rescue mission is underway but as Hephaestus says Wonder Woman can take care of herself. Meanwhile, there is a rush for who will take Zeus's throne.

The moody blues and bright oranges and reds really set the tone for Hades and the river of blood is something to behold.  The drawings are incredible and Hades does not quite look like what I would imagine. The images of the dead are creepy as they ought to be and a person I won't name that they run into down there is unbelievably drawn and created here.  This book is a great follow-up to the first book and makes you wonder where the series is going to go next.

Link to Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Wonder-Woman-Vol-2-Guts-ebook/dp/B00B07LJWA/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1497616629&sr=8-3&keywords=wonder+woman+the+new+52

  

Wonder Woman: The New 52! Volume One: Blood by Brian Azzarello, Cliff Chiang and Tony Akins

Zeus has gone missing which leaves an empty throne and gods wanting to fill it including Apollo. Hera meanwhile is on the hunt for a woman, Zola, who carries Zeus's child, though she knows nothing of the world of the gods and was tricked.  Hermes arrives to try to save her. He tells her to use her special key which takes her away from her farmhouse and lands her in Diana Prince's home.  They go back to the farmhouse and fight centaurs off.

Wonder Woman takes Zola and Hermes to Paradise Island for help but is greeted with animosity for bringing a girl who bears the child of Zeus.  This is where we hear the origin story Diana grew up hearing from her mother Hippolyta about being fashioned out of clay and how her mother prayed to the gods for a miracle and was granted one by having the clay come alive. That Diana was a child born without a man's seed.  Growing up she had to put up with being called the cruel nickname of Clay and now the nickname has come back out of the past.

Meanwhile, Strife is counseling her mother Hera on how to handle the situation with the girl and with Diana's new involvement.  She's egging her on a bit.  Hera sends her down to Paradise Island to deal with Diana and the women and to get Zola.  When she arrives she causes chaos and the Amazonians find they are fighting themselves.  When the fighting ends Strife lives up to her name and lets the cat out of the bag about Diana's real parentage. It seems that Hippolyta had an affair with Zeus the result of which was Diana. She made up the story about her being made from clay to protect her from Hera's wrath.  Diana leaves the Island in a terror.  While she is gone Hera visits Paradise Island to enact her punishment upon Hippolyta for her betrayal.

Diana must get over her rage at her mother and find a way to protect Zola from those who seek to harm her with the help of a wounded Hermes.  What they do is quite creative and daring. I love it.  The art is good and while the colors are lovely they don't pop. It's still a good start to a very interesting series.

Link to Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Wonder-Woman-Vol-Blood-New-ebook/dp/B008J2GADM/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1490358645&sr=8-1&keywords=the+new+52+wonder+woman

Some Luck by Jane Smiley

In this first of a trilogy by Pulitzer Prize-winning author of A Thousand Acres, comes the story of the Langdon family starting at 1920 when Rosanna and Walter Langdon of Denby, Iowa work their farm and their first child is about six months.  Each chapter is a different year and shows different viewpoints of the various family members, Walter's Irish family, and Rosanna's German one.  As Rosanna and Walter try to pass on their values to their children and do their best to keep them alive when there are always accidents on the farm and anyone can die.  From Frankie, the handsome, willful firstborn, who charms his way out of things and wants more than the farm life for him; to Joe, who is born to the life of a farmer as he loves the animals and has a near magical way with the crops; Mary Elizabeth, the sweet child; the delightful Lillian; Claire, her father's favorite, and Henry, the odd duck of the family.

This book follows them through the good times of the early twenties through the depression when they wonder if there'll be enough to eat on the table that year, through the war years when Frankie enlists in order to see more of the world, and perhaps sees too much.  Joe gets a deferment so he can work the farms.  These people are the salt of the earth and look out for each other. When harvest time comes, all the neighbors come out and help each other out.  The Langdon's also look out for their next door neighbor's farm after the death of the two girls' parents, one girl whom, Joe has his eye on for many years but seems to get nowhere with her.  They also look out for an Uncle who committed suicide's farm as well as the grandparent's farm.

Its a wonder they have time to do anything.  For a long time, Walter resists using tractors and sticks to the old method of horses, but times change and he has more work to do so he invests in a tractor.  Not knowing what to do with Frankie, who is too smart for his own good, they send him to live in Chicago with Rosanna's younger sister and her husband and daughter.  But they aren't much help in that they are obsessed with the Communist Party and have no time to watch over Frankie and make sure he does not get into trouble.

Joe is the sweet child, who should be treasured by someone special, not necessarily the one that he wants.  The two girls are special in their own ways as well.  Unfortunately, not all of the children survive the book.  After the war, Frankie stumbles upon a job where he sniffs out spies and communists that are against the United States.

This book is about an enthralling family and how they once started out in such simple ways but quickly become complex as the world becomes more convoluted and things become less black and white as they once were.  This book is a fascinating look at a family throughout the twentieth century and what they do to survive.

Link to Amazon:  https://www.amazon.com/Some-Luck-Hundred-Trilogy-Family-ebook/dp/B00JNQKQVU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1497446592&sr=8-1&keywords=some+luck+jane+smiley

Instrumental: A Memoir of Madness, Medication, and Music by James Rhodes

From the age of five to ten concert pianist James Rhodes was repeatedly raped by his gym teacher Mr. Lee.  This book has two objectives: to show how he was able to overcome the abuse through the healing power of music and various other means and to educate on classical music and why it is important today and how the classical music industry needs to change or die.  For those who seek salacious details of the rapes, you will be sorely disappointed as he does not provide them.  It was hard enough living through them at the time. Recalling them is like living through them again and that is not something he wants to do.

The rapes happened at Arnold House a Preparatory School for boys in St. John's Wood in England.  James tells of how Mr. Lee singled him out for special attention which made him feel good.  Pretty soon he was helping Mr. Lee put away the gym equipment and was his little helper. Then Mr. Lee started with letting him burn matches. This forbidden activity had a twofold purpose. It allowed Mr. Lee to get close to James by allowing him to do something he wanted to do and it provided Mr. Lee with blackmail material for when he wanted to get James to do something James might not want to do.  He also bought him chocolate and toys.  When it came time to sign up for boxing classes (the school didn't have much of a PE program, just the part-time program that Mr. Lee provided) he signed up.  Now, what happened after that is taken from a police report that was filed in 2010 by the Head Teacher who took the boys to the boxing classes and back to school. She complained about what she believed that something going on to the Headmaster, but was told she was overreacting. She also told James's mother about it as well.  The reason she didn't go farther was that back then no one suspected that kind of abuse.  She suspected that Mr. Lee was frightening him and causing personality changes in him, but she never suspected what was really going on. The reason she filed the police report was that James had become public about his abuse and she didn't want Mr. Lee to hurt any more children.  

But just because the abuse ended when his parents sent him to another school when he was ten it didn't mean that he became better. Physically his body was messed up. He had to defecate all the time.  Later he would require multiple back surgeries to fix the damage.  Mentally he was really messed up as those who have been abused are. He slept with any who wanted to sleep with him or gave blowjobs to the boys or to teachers and other grown men.  All of this is perfectly normal behavior for someone who has just survived the kind of abuse he went through. He wasn't even sure of his sexuality for a while.  But he had the piano to play and lose himself in.  Though he was told he would never be good enough to be a professional.  

When he went off to college he fell even more heavily into drugs and would stop playing piano for ten years. He just stayed high constantly until his parents got him out and placed him in a rehab facility where, while he got sober, he still didn't deal with his abuse issues.   He spent the next year in France working at a Burger King and having a great time with the ladies and the amazing things you can see and do in France.  It was the healthiest year of his life. He then went back to college and tried being normal. He just shoved all of that pain and craziness down and pretended it didn't exist.  He made it through college and got a good job and met a nice woman whom he married but didn't tell about his past.  But that pain would not stay down forever and it would come out and destroy everything.  

He would spend time in various hospitals seeking help and finally found himself a good therapist to see. But music was the guiding force that saved him.  When he was seven he heard Bach-Busoni, Chaconne and it transformed his life.  It was a place to escape to.  Each chapter of this book is set to a piece of music that he has picked out tells the story behind it so you can get the full experience of it like he does and set the mood for the chapter.  Be warned there is classical music talk in here, but he makes it so interesting you want to learn more.  Overall this book packs a powerful punch and I can't recommend it enough.

Quotes

Music has infiltrated our lives as much as nature, literature, art, sport, religion, philosophy and television. It is the great unifier, the drug of choice for teenagers around the world. It provides solace, wisdom, hope and warmth and has done so for thousands of years. It is medicine for the soul. There are eighty-eight keys on a piano and within that, an entire universe.

-James Rhodes (Instrumental: A Memoir of Madness, Medication, and Music p xi)

If Goethe was right and architecture is frozen music (what a quote!), this piece [Bach-Busoni, Chaconne] is a magical combination of the Taj Mahal, the Louvre and St. Paul’s Cathedral.

-James Rhodes (Instrumental: A Memoir of Madness, Medication, and Music p 31)

There is nothing as terrifying to a mentally ill person as a feeling. Good or bad doesn’t matter. It still has the potential to turn our minds upside down and back to front without offering the vaguest clue how to deal with it reasonably or rationally. 

-James Rhodes (Instrumental: A Memoir of Madness, Medication, and Music p 44)

To be nobody-but-yourself-in a world which is doing its best, night and day,to make you everybody else—means to fight the hardest battle which any human can fight; and never stop fighting.

-ee cummings

If there were an ultra-neurotic Jewish mother, on coke, who was beyond evil and got wet off malevolence, that is that part of my mind.

--James Rhodes (Instrumental: A Memoir of Madness, Medication, and Music p 49)

Musicians were meant to be all shades of fucked up, none more so than classical ones, who don’t even have the luxury of ripped jeans, groupies and cocaine—they have to express their issues with stupid jumpers, non-existent social skills and deranged facial expressions, and I knew I fit the bill.

-James Rhodes (Instrumental: A Memoir of Madness, Medication, and Music p 63)

How I wish psych wards had a loyalty card programme, with cards stamped for each day spent inside rather than each latte bought, where every tenth one resulted in a free day.

-James Rhodes (Instrumental: A Memoir of Madness, Medication, and Music p 69)

Could anyone be miserable in Paris? I’ve yet to see a fat Parisienne, the city has the heart-stoppingly beautifully architecture that can only come from surrendering to enemy forces in the early days of war, art, coffee, crepes, husky accents, a natural disdain for work, and smoking everywhere.

-James Rhodes (Instrumental: A Memoir of Madness, Medication, and Music p 70)

A creative artist works on his next composition because he was not satisfied with his previous one.

-Dmitri Shostakovich

There are many things I wish for. Cricket matches to not be able to last five days and still end in a draw. A massive increase in awareness and funding for mental health units and rape crisis centres. A six pack. KFC to deliver.

-James Rhodes (Instrumental: A Memoir of Madness, Medication, and Music p 98)

But feelings sometimes feel like Auschwitz, even if in reality they’re closer to Butlins. Real compassion comes from understanding that what feels true for someone is, to all intents and purposes, true. Doesn’t matter a bit if it is patently untrue to you and everyone else. And this terror felt true to me. It was my reality, however skewed that may seem.

-James Rhodes (Instrumental: A Memoir of Madness, Medication, and Music p 102)

Stupid love. Makes us all act like dickheads.

-James Rhodes (Instrumental: A Memoir of Madness, Medication, and Music p 168)

The people behind classical music seem to have lost sight of the fact that the composers themselves were, in effect, the original rock starts. Today the phrase ‘rock star’ brings to mind Heat magazine photoshoots, tattoos…being a judge on Britain’s Got Talent. Back then it meant really bad hair, some form of venereal disease, mental illness and poverty. They were for the large part mental, depraved, genius bastards who would have pissed themselves laughing at the ideas about performance that the classical gatekeepers of today are so rigidly stuck to. They didn’t throw TVs out of hotel windows, they threw themselves out.

-James Rhodes (Instrumental: A Memoir of Madness, Medication, and Music p 186-7)

Link to Amazon:  https://www.amazon.com/Instrumental-Memoir-Madness-Medication-Music-ebook/dp/B01M28JX4Y/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1497279999&sr=1-1&keywords=instrumental+james+rhodes

Lady Mechanika Volume One: The Mystery of the Mechanical Corpse by Joe Benitez (Written and Drawn), Peter Steigerwald (Color) and Josh Reed (Letters)

Previously I reviewed Satan's Alley (http://nicolewbrown.blogspot.com/2017/05/lady-mechanicka-demon-of-satans-alley.html) which is included in here and is where Lady Mechanika first meets up with Lord Blackpool the villain in this one.  A young girl with mechanical arms escapes from some guards and makes it all the way to Mechanika City to the train station where a doctor and his daughter see her and he tries to treat her, but she is dead.  Lady Mechanika gets word of this girl and goes to see the doctor and his daughter who does not believe that she is actually Lady Mechanika because she is dressed in a "frumpy" lady's dress rather than something dashing and heroic like the ones she has been reading about.  The doctor once worked for Blackpool, but he insists it was just for the one expedition in Satan's Alley.  He tells her he is only in town for Mechani-Con where scientists and inventors present their discoveries that year and hope for buyers.  She asks him if he was able to examine her and if she was like her or not and he tells her that the girl was a cruder version.  He also tells her that the Ministry of Health has her now.

Lady Mechanika breaks into the Ministry of Health to get a better look at her and to steal her body.  She finds a Romani earring on her and takes it off and pockets it.  As she is taking her out a blast knocks her back and someone takes the young girl from her.  When she gets up she is faced by Commander Katherine Winter and her goons who work for Blackpool who were there to get the body too but have missed their chance as well.  Winter and Mechanika have a history. After Mechanika was found after being held a prisoner by the madman who created her for who knows how long, she was placed inside a cell in the Ministry of Health because she was deemed not safe for humanity.  Winter helped her escape from there and showed her "the ways of the world".  But bad things happened and they parted ways on bad terms.  But because of that Mechanika spares her life when she gets the drop on her after killing her men in the tunnel.

When she gets back to her home, Mr. Lewis, her sometimes sidekick, and inventor is drunk again. She asks him if he has heard of a Mr. Cain, the name of an inventor that the doctor told her about who could be the man who created her and the girl.  He tells her Cain was known as the Engineer and was highly revered and worked on things that no one could imagine and that he was quite mad.  Could Cain be working for Blackpool? Or does he have his own agenda?

When she follows up on the earring she finds not only is the girl not the only Romani missing but that they believe that she is still alive.  Now she has to track down the missing Romani and go try to stop Blackpool and whatever he is up to.  I just love the drawing in this comic. They stay true to the Victorian steampunk roots they are going for including the ancient yellowed boxes with curlicued lettering.  The plot is really good and keeps you guessing all the way to the end.

Link to Amazon:  https://www.amazon.com/Lady-Mechanika-Mystery-Mechanical-Corpse-ebook/dp/B06Y39X198/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1497017587&sr=8-1&keywords=lady+mechanika+volume+1

How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe by Charles Yu

First off, this book has a lot of physics terms (at least I think they are physics terms; he could be making it all up for all I know of physics).  But that does not matter.  Just like watching Star Trek or Star Wars, or any other science fiction show or movie, you do not really have to understand what they are talking about.  You can get the general gist of what it means in normal terms.  I do not understand how the Star Trek: The Next Generation Enterprise Core worked, but I have general ideas when the plot centers around the engine core blowing up.

This book centers on a thirty-year-old time machine tech, Charles Yu who spends most of his time in his time capsule named Tammy (who has a self-esteem problem and cries often).  His job is to go back in time to help other time travelers who have damaged their machines and fix them so they can get back to the present.  He finds it sad that when you can go to any point in your timeline and visit (you must NEVER meet yourself or bad things will happen) they choose the worst moment of their life and relive it over and over again, hoping for a different outcome which never happens, because no matter how hard you try, you can not change the past.  The universe will not allow it.

Charles got into the time machine business as a young child.  His father came up with a theory on how to make time travel possible and the two spend ten years working on building a time machine.  When things do not work out as planned, Charles's father hops into his new time machine and disappears, leaving him and his mother alone.  He is forced to drop out of school and get work as a tech and his mother ends up renting a machine that replays one hour on a loop for however many years you pay for.  She plays out a dinner with Charles and her husband as holograms.  Charles, in person, rarely visits her, which he feels guilty about.  Charles has shut himself off from the world by essentially living in his time machine with a science fiction dog and Tammy for company.  Every few years or so he goes back home for maintenance of his vehicle, and while years have passed in his life a day or maybe a week has only passed at home.

After returning for maintenance he shows up to pick up his machine and he sees another him step out of a machine and instead of running away, which is what he is supposed to do, he shoots his future shelf and climbs into the time machine and is now in a time loop.  Inside the machine is a book that is partly filled out and shows him how to find his father, who can possibly save him.  But time is running out and as he tries to accept his impending death, he cannot quite give up so easily, even though you cannot change time he will do his best to attempt it.

This book delves into the life of a lonely man who longs to know why his father deserted him and his mother and shows how he refuses to face life and instead hides away from it in his machine.  He makes up a life he could have lived and convinced himself that he does not need others, but over time, he begins to regret that he did not try to meet the girl of his dreams or make those close friends or be nicer to Tammy and his manager, a computer program that does not know it is only a program and acts like it is human and has a family, with a wife who is a spreadsheet program.  She knows they are not real, but she goes along with it to keep him happy in his delusion.  Truly this is a story of a boy and his father and their attempts to connect until it all falls apart and he loses his father, this incredibly innovative, creative, and emotional book will keep you turning the pages until the end dying to find out if you can cheat fate.

Quotes

…but unfortunately, it’s true: time does heal.  It will do so whether you like it or not, and there’s nothing anyone can do about it.  If you’re not careful, time will take away everything that ever hurt you, everything you have ever lost, and replace it with knowledge.  Time is a machine: it will convert your pain into experience.  Raw data will be compiled, will be translated into a more comprehensible language.  The individual events of your life will be transmuted into another substance called memory and in the mechanism something will be lost and you will never be able to reverse it, you will never again have the original moment back in its uncategorized, preprocessed state.  It will force you to move on and you will not have a choice in the matter.
--Charles Yu (How to Live Safely in a Science Fiction Universe p 54)

 

If I could be half the person my dog is, I would be twice the human I am.

--Charles Yu (How to Live Safely in a Science Fiction Universe p 65)

Link to Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Live-Safely-Science-Fictional-Universe-ebook/dp/B003V1WXIW/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1496927127&sr=1-1&keywords=how+to+live+safely+in+a+science+fictional+universe

All New X-Men: Yesterday's X-Men by Brian Michael Bendis (Writer), Stuart Immonen (Penciler), Wade Von Grawbadger (Inker), Marie Gracia (Colorest), and V C Corey Petit (Letterer)

In this X-Men's series, Scarlet Witch took away the powers of 99% of all mutants on earth.  The Phoenix decided to get involved and possessed and corrupted Cyclops, the leader of the X-Men who then struck down Professor Xavier. It took all of the Avengers and the X-Men to bring him down.  The Phoenix Force was dispersed across earth creating new mutants.

Cyclops, with Emma Frost, has joined forces to start recruiting mutants for the new Charles Xavier School for Mutants.  At the Jean Grey School for Higher Learning, Kitty Pride, Beast, Iceman, and Storm are concerned about this as no one has ever trusted Magneto and now they aren't sure about Scott after what happened to the Professor.  They would, of course, rather have these mutants under their roof learning.  It goes without saying that in this world the law and others like them want to lock up mutants.

Beast, however, has another plan to try to change things.  He finds a way to go back in time to when he and Scott were just starting out as X-Men in order to bring back the past Scott to see his future self in order to prevent him from becoming that.  Like a Christmas Carol in a weird, yet cool way.  Only it all goes awry when all of the X-Men insist on coming too. Back then Jean didn't have her telepathic abilities yet and more importantly, she's still alive.  Neither side knows what to make of the other when they arrive back in the present.  Jean's psychic powers become suddenly activated and she has to figure out how to use them herself on the fly.  Beast is ill from traveling back in time and his changing genome so Kitty and the other Beast are working on him.

Nothing, of course, goes according to plan when the two Cyclops's meet.  This is a great read with a really cool storyline that is inventive.  The paneling in this book is particularly clever. At one point Jean looks into Beast's mind and sees something and the paneling depicts that in the shape of an eye with segments that has Jean in the bottom corner on her knees, exhausted from the mind read.  The drawings are really good and the colors really pop, especially when Cyclops uses his ray.  I plan on reading more from this series of X-Men books as I hope to find out what happens next.

Link to Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/All-New-X-Men-Vol-Yesterdays-ebook/dp/B00CF4HG1K/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1496419111&sr=8-1&keywords=all+new+xmen+yesterday%27s+xmen
 

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

Set sometime between the World Wars, this novel opens up with the main character, Janie, arriving back in Eaton, Florida, an all-black town, wearing overalls and muddied up.  The old women sitting on the porch are desperate to know where she has been all this time, but Janie has never been one to gossip or mess with them.  However, she knows they will never leave her alone and maybe she wants her story told, so she has her friend Pheoby tell it for her.

She begins at the start of her life as a girl in West Florida where her Nanny worked for a white family.  She sent her to school and had hopes for her, but when she sees her kisses a no-account man when she was sixteen, she realizes that she needs to see her settled with a husband before she dies so she had someone to look after her.  Her Nanny has found the perfect man in Logan Killick who owns sixty acres and is nice if fat and old and he has been asking for her hand for a while.  Janie hopes to find herself in love with him, but it doesn't happen and she instead finds herself stuck on a farm with a man who loves her but expects her to work on the farm.

When Joe Starks comes sniffing around the farm she falls for his charm and runs off with him and his talk of big dreams and a town in Florida that is made up of all blacks.  When they get there things are run down with a collection of shacks and no government set in place, like a mayor.  Joe Starks aims to change that by telling others what to do and spending his money to buy more land from the man who donated some of his lands to start the town.  On Stark's land, he has built his home, and a store, as well as selling plots of land to others to build homes on.  Stark makes Janie wear her hair covered in a headscarf because he wants no one to see her gorgeous hair but him.  He also makes her work in the store and when she isn't in the store he makes her stay at home doing nothing. He sees her as too good for most of the town folk.  He has no interest in her opinion as a woman is stupid and not worth listening to.

This book slogs along until Tea Cake shows up like a burst of sunshine.  He shows Janie true love and how to live life.  But something must go wrong because at the beginning of the book Janie says that Tea Cake is gone and that is why she has come back to Eatonville.  This is a beautifully written book.  I first read it in high school and hated it. I can only surmise that I did not finish it and get to the Tea Cake part, because the first half of the book is a bit hard to read, but the last half makes it more than worthwhile.

Quotes

Ships at a distance have every man’s wish on board. For some they come in with the tide. For others they sail forever on the horizon, never out of sight, never landing until the Watcher turns his eyes away in resignation, his dreams mocked to death by Time. That is the life of men. Now, women forget all those things they don’t want to remember, and remember everything they don’t want to forget. The dream is the truth.  Then they act and do accordingly.

-Zora Neale Hurston (Their Eyes Were Watching God p 1)

An envious heart makes a treacherous ear.

-Zora Neale Hurston (Their Eyes Were Watching God p 5)

She knew now that marriage did not make love. Janie’s first dream was dead, so she became a woman.

-Zora Neale Hurston (Their Eyes Were Watching God p 25)

Some people could look at a mudpuddle and see and ocean with ships.

-Zora Neale Hurston (Their Eyes Were Watching God p 89)

Yuh can’t beat uh woman. Dey jes won’t stand fuh it.

-Zora Neal Hurston (Their Eyes Were Watching God p 96)

When you see uh woman doin’ so much rakin’ in her head, she’s combin’ at some man or ‘nother.

-Zora Neale Hurston (Their Eyes Were Watching God p 111)

 “But you’re takin’ uh awful chance.” “No mo’ than Ah took befo’ and no mo’ than anybody else takes when dey gits married. It always changes folks, and sometimes it brings out dirt and meanness dat even de person didn’t know they had in ‘em theyselves.

-Zora Neale Hurston (Their Eyes Were Watching God p 113)

All gods who receive homage are cruel. All gods dispense suffering without reason. Otherwise they would not be worshiped.  Through indiscriminate suffering men know fear and fear is the most divine emotion. It is the stones for altars and the beginnings of wisdom. Half gods are worshiped in wine and flowers. Real gods require blood.

-Zora Neale Hurston (Their Eyes Were Watching God p 145)

Love is like the sea. It’s uh movin’ thing, but still and all, it takes its shape from the shore it meets, and it’s different with every shore.

-Zora Neale Hurston (Their Eyes Were Watching God p 191)

Link to Amazon:  https://www.amazon.com/Their-Eyes-Were-Watching-God-ebook/dp/B000UMN7C6/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1496321833&sr=8-1&keywords=their+eyes+were+watching+god